Tax Mutiny By Republicans Rocks Reagan`s Steady Boat

December 15, 1985|By George de Lama, the Tribune`s White House correspondent.

WASHINGTON — To hear Democrats tell it, the long campaign for tax revision might have marked the beginning of the end for Ronald Reagan.

``Noon, Dec. 11 will be remembered as the date that Ronald Reagan became a lame duck on the floor of the House,`` House Speaker Thomas O`Neill (D., Mass.) declared last week after the President`s visions of tax revision were ambushed by lawmakers of his own party.

That prediction may prove premature, as Reagan and his top aides worked through the weekend to revive the dying tax overhaul plan that was impaled on a procedural vote in the House.

Even if Reagan has his way and enough House Republicans decide to end their mutiny and keep his cherished tax overhaul proposals alive, last week`s stunning setback marks a new era in the Reagan presidency.

However long the defections last, never before had members of Reagan`s own party deserted him so openly and with such a public tone of defiance. White House threats of withholding presidential support during next year`s congressional elections were shrugged off. Most Republicans, thinking of their own political futures, simply didn`t mind being seen as keeping their distance from Reagan.

``With glee on their faces, Republican congressmen voted to humiliate the man who led them to victory,`` O`Neill said. ``They showed their contempt for the White House by voting overwhelmingly against the tax reform process.``

``This has to be considered the greatest legislative defeat so far since Reagan has been in office,`` said one former Reagan adviser. ``It hardly would`ve seemed possible a few years ago.``

Four years ago, as Reagan sailed through the heady first year of his first term, few of his aides could have forseen just how tough the second time around would be.

Back in those golden days of his presidency, Reagan had survived an assassination attempt and bounced back impressively, his grace, good humor and courage under pressure cementing his grip, probably forever, on the nation`s respect and affection.

Armed with what everyone saw as a formidable Election Day mandate, he rammed historic spending and tax reductions through a cowed Congress, dismissing lawmakers` considerable doubts about the wisdom of his policies through the sheer force of his personality.

Supporters crowed about the ``Reagan Revolution,`` and congressional Republicans flocked in line to back the popular President whose coattails had dragged many of them into office. Unable to fend off Reagan, the Democrats scattered to the winds, and the defection of some of the more conservative lawmakers among them gave Reagan his margin of victory.

``You ain`t seen nothing yet,`` soon became Reagan`s pet phrase. When he looked ahead, the promise of the future seemed limitless.

In some respects, the first year of his second term has paralleled the first time around. Bolstered by a whopping 49-state victory in the last election, Reagan set out determined to bring about a ``Second American Revolution,`` with an ambitious plan to overhaul the nation`s tax code as its centerpiece.

Once again, the nation had a scare when he entered the hospital. With his characteristic bravado, Reagan faced colon cancer surgery and two scrapes with skin cancer on the nose. Again he emerged unflappable and apparently robust.

Once again, his popularity soared. But the similarities with the first year of the first term stopped there. After weeks of traveling around the country, a major prime-time television address to the nation and considerable arm-twisting in Congress, Reagan saw the Democratic-controlled House Ways and Means Committee swipe the banner of tax revision from the White House and produce the only bill that could pass the House.

For about two weeks, Reagan couldn`t seem to decide what to do, torn between his reservations about key provisions of the bill and his desperate desire to keep the concept of tax revision breathing long enough for the Republican-controlled Senate to make changes in the House version next year.

Vascillating, he decided to strongly endorse the bill drawn up by Rep. Dan Rostenkowski`s (D., Ill.) panel, but then was talked out of it by White House chief of staff Donald Regan and his top deputy, Dennis Thomas.

By the time Reagan finally did decide to support the bill, he did it in a way that Democrats considered half-hearted, instructing House Republicans to vote first for their own alternative and, if that failed, to support the Democratic bill. House Republicans balked.

By the middle of last week, the President went all out, summoning reluctant Republicans to the White House for pep talks and warning publicly that ``it will be years before we can bring (tax revision) back`` if a tax bill, even a Democratic tax bill, could not pass the House.